Page 52 of The Goddess is Awakened
I expected Azren to drop the Krausses home and come back to teach class. Aside from the one time they were late because they were figuring out my shit, I knew how much they love teaching.
Azren never showed up to class. They didn’t show up to any of their classes all day and we didn’t have a tutoring session today. Azren wouldn’t miss a whole day of class unless something was up. I’d never been to the faculty cottage the academy gave them, but I was going to portal there tonight to make sure Headmaster Krauss hadn’t done something stupid and fired them.
azren
The two Krausses being inflicted on me at the moment were terrible. They werenothinglike Minerva. I couldn’t explain why. It was probably the Fates again. Something was always guiding my hand when I dropped her into a stillborn baby. Shealwaysmet the same three men in every lifetime. They didn’t remember, but she eventually did. She was recovering in my realm back in her godly vessel using my research to figure out what it meant.
When I dropped Freya in Minerva Krauss, she didn’t know until she turned eighteen and got her magic. She was essentially a mortal witch with weak magic and a terrible father. Minerva could have turned out like her sister Edith, but she didn’t. Edith was a bitter woman who probably died of a piss and vinegar infection when Lindsay was seventeen.
Minerva tried to step up and be a surrogate grandmother, but all Lindsay wanted was her money. Lindsay Krauss didn’t get accepted into the Academy of the Profane. Great nieces weren’t considered family for acceptance. Minerva still pulled strings, got her in, and even paid for her education. Lindsay didn’t even thank her.
I wasn’t really a fan of this woman before I got here, but I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, not anymore. Icouldhave healed her when I got her somewhere more comfortable, but as soon as I got her home and closed the curtains, she was more concerned about expelling George than asking a fucking god about their healing abilities. So, she could just deal with the pustules.
I stayed when Kaylee called her contact at the board on speaker so Lindsay could let them know she’d be out of commission for at least two months. I corrected both of them when the story they tried to put out was that George attacked the headmaster unprovoked.
I didn’t really need to. Dexter Nevermoon was one of those rare students that didn’t come around often. He reminded me of Drake and George. Drake grew up around me, so he had no problem challenging me. George was a god in her own right and since she ended up the first mimic in our history, she could kick my ass with my own powers.
Dexter wasn’t like that. He didn’t know me but he questioned everything. Dexter formed his own opinions and wrote brilliant papers. Dexter apparently, had no problem with any authority figures. I was pretty sure Dexter orchestrated the entire tableau in the hallway and I couldn’t blame him.
I casually dropped that George wasn’t the one that flung the hex. She just got out of the way. Lindsay couldn’t see me, but Kaylee could. I left enough unsaid thattheyknew that I knew who really did it and if Lindsay wanted to expel them, it was going to ruin her family.
I didn’t tell the board member it was Kaylee. Call me a sentimental sap, but she was only eighteen. College was the time to figure your shit out. At this point in her life, she could end up like EdithorMinerva, even though both of them were dead. I wasn’t going to take the chance for personal growth away from her because right now, she happened to be terrible.
Lindsay, though? She lied through her teeth and tried to ruin an innocent eighteen-year-old’s future because she was bitter about an inheritance. She knew at any moment I could have told the board it was Kaylee, so she just backtracked and said she must not have seen who really did it.
The board made their replacement right then and there and I hated it. I made my realm and the reapers who lived there, but running the whole thing until there were enough people and resources that they didn’t need me wasn’t my favorite. The Netherworld was now run by people much more organized than I was. I was still involved with my creations, but not as some lord and king.
Then, that board member wanted to argue with me about my organizational skills when I suggested Gabriel Morningstar, who actually wanted the job and would be really good at it. I didn’t know this board member. They weren’t the one who had run this school before like the senior Church who had interviewed me.
I knew what this was when she asked. She was a greedy little ape. She wanted me to take over headmaster duties while Lindsay recovered and call in a favor and have another god guest lecture in my history classes until I could come back. This woman had clearly never met a god in her life. We didn’t have each other on speed dial and some of these bitches didnotneed to be let loose on college students.
And then she wanted to argue with me about it. I was fed up and theonlyreason I agreed to take over for Lindsay was that I knew Freya was back in my realm mourning her wolves and she happened to be a natural teacher. She needed a distraction and her answers might be on this realm. I also knew she’dloveseeing George and the Bell family with her real face.
I also suspected Lindsay had been abusing her position much more than just the obvious. As soon as I agreed, I portalled to her office and took in the chaos. I was generally disorganized, but there was a method to my madness and I knew where everything was. I didn’t understand how Lindsay Krauss’s mind worked on anything, much less all these stacks of paperwork. She couldn’t be bothered to give me her password, so I had to ask Gabriel to call Balthazar.
Lindsay Krauss wassomething.When this academy was founded, they built a large sporting field for something that ended up not being as popular as dodgeball. It was a nice stadium, but instead of just switching to a university dodgeball team, someone—ages ago—decided the college should be known for academics. They kept the stadium and rented it out. Some of the funds went toward scholarships.
I found something buried in the dark recesses of her office that was going to get just as much hate as the moon orgy if the students found out. The board had all but approved bringing dodgeball to the Academy of the Profane. The only thing they were waiting for was Lindsay to gauge student interest to see if they had enough players. Zion Skinner had already agreed to coach.
Young Oscar, the Brujo in my history class, should be playing pro right now. Reyson was always bragging about how George and Michael played on their high school teams and always worked in tandem. Plenty of students were sporting dodgeball jerseys when they didn’t have to be in uniform. Drake grew up on the Netherworld instead of Earth. Drake was one of those people who picked their hobbies, got obsessed, and became a damned prodigy. Drake was an amazing goalie.
Not only did I think we had enough students here that would be interested, with Zion Skinner coaching and the talent I knew about, we might have a damned good team.
Lindsay wasn’t just depriving the school of a dodgeball team. She was doing alotof overrides in the system, too. Kayleecouldhave been as smart as Minerva, but she was flunking my class through willful ignorance. Instead of the papers I asked her to write, she was turning in papers that were shit they thought they knew that was clearly written by AI. She’d flunked every paper and test I’d given her because it was like she thought I was lying about everything I taught.
Seemed like the little ankle-biter was doing that in all of her classes. She was lazy and trying to skate through college on her mom. That wasn’t going to work in the real world. Kaylee wassupposedto have gotten an email letting her know she would be put on academic probation at the end of the semester because of her grades. If she didn’t get them up, she’d get expelled. Except she didn’t get that email because Lindsay overrode it.
Todd Gravestone was also supposed to have been expelled, but Lindsay didn’t take care of it. He was not only on academic probation, but he had two strikes against him for hurting other students. Michael Bell reported what he did to Dexter Nevermoon. Todd should have been gone.
Todd was a menace and dumb as rocks. I had him in my history class. The only person who would miss him was Kaylee, who seemed to be dating him. I hummed a little happy tune as I overrode everything Lindsay did and processed his expulsion. I didn’t relish ruining a kid’s life, but Todd had three chances and earned this.
I chuckled because I had an idea. Gabriel gave me Balthazar’s cell phone. I hit dial. I was crazy about George and wanted to impress her.
I knewexactlyhow to do that.
george
